Parallel timeline, Blue Star, Year 17 of the New Republic.
This was an era of rapid transformation. On one hand, new science and technology were developing at an explosive pace. On the other, at the very bottom of society, countless backward and decaying forces still lingered.
The entire world was in a state of division and frenzy.
Progress and stagnation coexisted. Some raced along in sports cars, while others still pulled rickshaws by hand.
Modern metropolises had already risen, yet ancient and impoverished towns still dotted the land like stars.
Multiple sources of energy coexisted—coal, oil, wind—but electricity had already become a new dominant energy source...
...
Zhonghai, the top-tier metropolis of the New Republic.
It was past ten at night when Lu Li finally got off work and walked out of the office building.
He looked up. The sky was almost completely blocked by a forest of skyscrapers, with only a thin sliver of sky remaining. A heavy silence settled in his heart...
Zhonghai, the city at the forefront of change, looked like a vision of the future compared to most other cities in the Republic. It had everything dazzling and magnificent. But for ordinary people, living here made one feel incredibly small—like an ant struggling to survive in a vast urban jungle.
Helpless. Despairing.
Back when he had just graduated, Lu Li had been full of ambition. Without hesitation, he chose to stay in this cutting-edge metropolis, determined to realize his dreams and ride the tide of the times!
However...
Unfortunately...
Once you enter society, you're forced to accept harsh reality. You're not born a protagonist. You're just an ordinary person.
Zhonghai was a magnet for the elites—those truly gifted and outstanding, or those born into powerful families, second- and third-generation winners of life...
This city was a paradise for them.
For ordinary people, it was a monster that devoured you.
Lu Li felt irritable today. Unlike usual, he didn't run like a stray dog to catch the last tram back to his rented apartment in the distant suburbs.
He walked along the ride with no expression—or rather, he was numb.
His mind was in chaos...
It had been four years since he graduated and started working at twenty-three.
In those four years, Lu Li had watched colleague after colleague join the company full of ambition, only to fade and leave quietly one by one, returning to their hometowns.
This city devoured people.
And now, Lu Li was starting to wonder—should he also leave this place where his dreams were born… and where they had died?
Just today, his parents called him from back home.
His mother, Yu Qin, first nagged him as usual to hurry up and find a girlfriend…
Then, she told Lu Li not to worry about buying a home. She and Lu's dad had sold their old house back home, and scraped together all their life savings—putting together a total of 700,000 yuan!
Along with Lu Li's own savings of over 300,000 these past few years, they now had nearly one million yuan.
That amount was enough for a down payment on an apartment in Zhonghai.
Of course, that meant an apartment in the far outskirts of the city.
Nowadays, in Zhonghai's core areas—like the West City districts—housing prices were around 130,000 per square meter...
Even outside the core, in East City, prices were still over 70,000 per square meter...
Only in the distant outer zones could you barely find places with average prices around 20,000 to 30,000 per square meter.
For a small apartment, a million yuan would just about cover the down payment.
Thinking about this, Lu Li's eyes flickered. Without realizing it, he clenched his fists.
His parents were just average dual-income workers in their hometown. Scraping together 700,000 yuan probably meant emptying everything they had—not just savings, but likely their retirement money too.
"Is this the life I want to live?"
"Drain my family dry, just to become a registered resident of this cutting-edge city? To secure a foothold in this future era?"
Lu Li asked himself.
This was, in fact, the path most migrants took to stay in Zhonghai—two generations making sacrifices to secure one small place to settle down.
"My current salary, after tax, is 16,000 yuan. And then there's the mortgage..."
Lu Li did a quick calculation in his head, and the result filled him with despair.
This society was cruel. Hard work never guaranteed a return.
"I don't want to live like this."
Lu Li spat fiercely on the ground, firm in his resolve.
Boom!
Boom!
Suddenly, a bolt of lightning slashed across the sky, followed by crashing thunder.
In an instant,
Rain poured down in sheets.
Under the night sky, raindrops the size of beans fell hard and fast.
Lu Li took shelter under the eaves of a nearby shop, watching the rain, watching the panicked crowd...
The downpour continued.
And then, something strange—something with no warning—happened to Lu Li. No one noticed.
In each of Lu Li's eyes, a faint image of a circular quartz clock appeared…
The hands of the clocks were spinning—each at different speeds.
Tick... tick... tick...
Unfathomable information began to flood into Lu Li's mind.
No one knew how long it lasted.
Eventually, Lu Li finished receiving all the information and snapped back to reality.
The phantom clocks in his eyes vanished.
Lu Li was stunned.
He looked up at the middle-aged man beside him, who was also taking shelter from the rain, clutching a briefcase.
Above the man's head, Lu Li saw several simple lines of information:
Name: Cheng Xiaoxian
Age: 42
Remaining Lifespan: 31 years 78 days 12 hours 56 minutes 32 seconds
Lu Li swallowed hard, then turned and looked at a young woman around his age.
Name: Gu Ping
Age: 26
Remaining Lifespan: 9 years 15 days 3 hours 47 minutes 29 seconds
So this girl—who wasn't bad-looking at all—would only live to thirty-five?
Lu Li was dazed.
He looked again, this time at a chubby, honest-faced middle-aged man standing a bit farther away.
Name: Fan Changjiang
Age: 36
Remaining Lifespan: 3 minutes 23 seconds
Lu Li's eyes widened instantly.
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